On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Levi Pearson wrote:
>> In other words, I don't see the more liberal licenses such as BSD or
>> MIT being on any higher moral ground, or freer, than the GPL. They just
>> have different tradeoffs.
>> Except that 'more liberal' literally means more free. :)
Yes, the BSD and MIT licenses are more liberal about what they allow the
end user to do.
But the GPL is counterintuitively more liberal about what it gives the
community, using copyright law in a nontraditional way.
If the law itself were more liberal, there'd be no need for either.
> I get your point, though, and that's what I said at the beginning of
> this. I don't care for the social movement surrounding the GPL, and I
> would rather attend a presentation on technical topics than on Free
> Software evangelism.
Sure. Point taken.
I think many of us see value in discussing the freedom aspect of the free
software movement, and consider it irresponsible not to expose newcomers
to the community about it. Many of us have been on this list for a very
long time, and to us the topics are well-worn and mostly understood
(though not entirely, as tonight's discussion shows). But to newcomers,
they deserve to hear it from the FSF perspective as well as the Open
Source crowd and wherever else. If you already know that, of course it
makes sense to have less interest.
The Business Software Alliance, the MPAA, the RIAA, and others make sure
the proprietary mindset is widely preached, so I see no need to give them
an additional venue to spread their doctrine. (In which class I presume
some of the people who don't want to hear from Darl McBride are putting
him.)
Jon
--
Jon Jensen
End Point Corporation
http://www.endpoint.com/